General Protection Fault
by Noelemahc
Summary: Synthesis has come and gone, changing the lives of everyone in the galaxy forever. Now it is time to pick up the pieces, figure out what, besides a healthy green glow, it grants those affected and, more importantly, how does medicine work in this new weird universe? And how do the diseases? An attempt to build a medical procedural in the Mass Effect universe, post-Synthesis.
1. Prologue

**PROLOGUE**

"For the fifth time, Mrs. Stevenson, your plant is _not_ trying to talk to you, you're just reading its energy field. Which is messed up, yes, because you keep watering it too much, which it doesn't need anymore. What it **does **need is more sun, which it won't get indoors. NEXT!"

Nurse Stacy Watkins detested ER duty. Not because she didn't like talking to people - that was one of the reasons she decided to become a nurse to begin with. Despite being afraid of blood, she wanted to help people like herself overcome their fear of hospitals, and a friendly face could go a long way towards that goal. The real reason was that she really didn't enjoy the uphill battle of convincing the walk-ins that their problem wasn't a medical one, and even if it was, it was of the sort dealt with by the doctors that lay you down on a nice couch and ask you awkward questions, not the ones that can't just open you up to see whether those "blue-skinned harlots" stole your reproductive organs while you were sleeping.

The next one in line was a middle-aged woman with a haunted look and a lopsided haircut. Both made Stacy's inner warning bells go off playing an interpretative music-box version of Marie Renard's last year hit song _"Locked Up in My Own Body"_. Wincing at the unhappy memories she had associated with the song, Stacy stifled the feeling and pulled up a fresh admission form on her datapad, forcing a smile onto her face.

"Hello and welcome to St. Martin's Hospital. How can I help you, Miss-?" she began the standard spiel, instated recently to help combat drug-seekers and other people that would be trying to seek gain through illicit means during the time of post-war confusion.

"Shepard. Commander John Shepard. I seem to have a problem."

* * *

"You bosh'tet, I told you to leave me al- Wait, you're not Fal'Garah."

"No, Creator-Admiral Xen, am not," the geth that dared enter the presence of Admiral Daro'Xen vas Moreh unannounced said, "Availability for verbal communication?"

"Why?" Xen asked sulkily, buryng her face - or, rather, her faceplate - in her hands.

"Beg pardon?" the geth asked. While their acquired individuality and Reaper-boosted intelligence allowed them, among other things, to use verbal communication more effectively than they used to, they still had issues with personal pronouns, sometimes simply opting to drop them to avoid confusion. That is to say, their own confusion, as this sometimes rendered their speech incomprehensible to the non-Geth.

"Why do you bother with verbal communication? Can't you just do it digitally now?" Xen asked wearily, looking up at the geth. It was a lighter model, probably one of the newer ones, created for finer manual labour - and with each revision looking more and more like a slightly deformed Quarian in an envirosuit and less like a human contortionist in a PVC catsuit with bits of metal sticking out of him at odd angles. The coloration was red and black, which meant that this particular unit was a medical-equipped one.

"Assumed it would be less invasive. Less offputting," the geth finally admitted with something like an attempt to shy away from her gaze. If it were human, it would have been averting its gaze from her as if in shame or discomfort.

"Very well. What did you want to talk about?" the Admiral conceded, leaning back in her seat. She was still getting used to her makeshift office on the space station that the Salarians, Quarians and Geth hastily constructed as an interim neutral space for the heads of the fleets to meet while the Citadel's status was still in question. While it was cramped by human standards, it was offensibly lavish by Quarian ones. In the past, Xen, being the scientist that she was, usually slept in her lab for the space that it offered. Here, bizarre as it may have sounded, the room made her feel agoraphobic, having all this space to herself. After all, she usually had to share the lab with her techs. She didn't know what to do with the space.

"Have been chosen to give message from The Consensus," the geth began with what would have probably equated to unease in anyone else, "The Geth are willing to offer technology as offer of goodwill and co-operation."

"What further technology could we possibly need now?" Xen asked wearily. The last few days had been hard on her and her crew - what with the-

"That which was impractical and irrelevant before. Server storage. Chassis control redirection. Mental-"

"-matrix mapping?" Xen finished in chorus, dropping her train of thought like a bomb with a lit fuse. "Of course, after- all **this**- this could mean easy switching of bodies. No more need for envirosuits if you can swap out for a robot chassis. No waste of space for incarceration of criminals. It could mean-"

"-Resurrection," the geth finished with what sounded suspiciously like reverence.

* * *

"So, Doctor, anything conclusive?"

Admiral Hackett was not in the best of moods. The only palpable improvement of the weird techno-organic synthesis the activation of the Crucible has brought them was that he no longer needed to shave because he had a marginally functional control over his hair growth speed now, restricted only by his willingness to focus on it badly enough. His chin itched from his experimentation on the subject this morning, and it didn't help his mood any.

"Not in a way that would satisfy you, Admiral," Dr. Karin Chakwas replied.

"Can you run that list by me again?"

"Of course. The husks and related creatures have been restored to a semblance of their old selves. For those of them incorporating more than one head, like the Cannibals, or those with someone else's, like the Brutes, it has been crippling, most of them have committed suicide, and those that did not are catatonic. Human husks and Marauders are mostly lucid, capable of communication - some more than others - and rational thought. We are at a loss as to what to do with them at the moment."

"Alright. What about biological processes? Any input from our... _new friends_?" Hackett asked, practically spitting out the last words.

"Harbinger has not been very forthcoming on the subject. As I understand, the Reapers have their own ha-" the doctor paused, cleared her throat, then continued on, "Erm- their_ tentacles_ full, because for the same reason their husks have regained their mental faculties, so, it seems, have the races that went into the creation of the Reapers, " Each of them is now something similar to the Geth Consensus - except there is **no** consensus, because they have been brain-dead for aeons. Two Reapers have already committed suicide by sun, which is what caused those beautiful magnetic anomalies yesterday."

"The techs tell me the amount of element zero the Reaper cores contain is astounding," Hackett remarked, almost as an aside. "So, what have you managed to figure out so far?"

"We can still eat, drink, excrete and perform all other usual things as normal, though we don't need most of them anymore to function fully," the doctor began, checking against notes on her datapad, "We also don't need to breathe, being out in the sun helps a lot, electrocution now has significantly altered effects on our biology and the changes to the blood we can't even begin to list," she went on, pausing to sigh before continuing, "Earthside hospitals are swarming with people rushing in to get medical attention over symptoms they have never exhibited before, most of which look like human health problems moved into the digital realm. The common cold **did not**become any less harmful, I'm afraid. Then there's the matter of-"

"Admiral!" a tech interrupted, running up to them, waving a datapad as if it contained all the secrets of the Universe on it, "A call just came in from a hospital in London. Some woman used N7 _and_ SPECTRE access codes to get a message for you," the tech paused, as if trying to figure out a way to deliver the message without being the proverbial messenger that gets the blame.

"Well? What is it?" the Admiral asked impatiently.

"It's rather mundane, sir - _Get me out of here_ - but the sender... Sir, she claims to be Commander John Shepard."


	2. Chapter One - Miss Taken Identity

**CHAPTER ONE - MISS TAKEN IDENTITY**

"...which means that all the Banshees that were accounted for have been interred at the various Asari encampments on Earth and are gradually being shipped off-world. QEC comm packets and overall reports indicate that of all the husk forms, Banshees are the most cooperative - probably a leftover from the rather specific upbringing most Ardat-Yakshi receive if they agree to a life of celibacy."

The Salarian delegate to the Allied Fleet Command looked up from his notes, pausing to take in the faces of the Fleet Commanders - Admiral Han'Gerrel vas Neema for the Quarians, Geth Prime 451705 for the Geth with Quarian Admiral Shala'Raan vas Tonbay serving as its consultant on non-geth communications, Admiral Stephen Hackett for the humans, Primarch Adrien Victus for the Turians, Pirate Queen Aria T'Loak for the Terminus Fleets, Urdnot Wreav for the Krogans and Captain Ka'Hairal Balak for the Batarians. The Asari representatives had missed the third meeting in a row, and the united Hanar-Drell force has moved out-of-system in pursuit of a possible interim colonization world to at least temporarily set down while the Charon Relay was being repaired. The Reapers split their forces unevenly, leaving some behind to collect the debris remaining in-system and to repair the Charon Relay with it while the rest would move at their own pace towards the other relays, trying to most efficiently reconstitute the relay networks. Even then, with the most optimistic projections, 50% restoration would only be achieved in a couple Earth years, and full network operation would probably take three times that long due to how spread out some of the relays were.

"We've also uncovered that the Reapers were preparing designs for husks of the other races - Salarian, Quarian, Elcor. We're still trying to figure out where the production facilities were located, as they haven't brought any of them to Sol and with most of our fleets being land-locked around Earth, it's not that easy to look for them," he continued, pausing occasionally to restore his breath, "And they're not willing to share that information directly. If anything, our benevolent gods aren't as benevolent as they make themselves out to be," he finished, putting the datapad down.

"Thank you, Emissary Katru," Admiral Gerrel said before turning to the other members of the AFC, "So, even despite forcing this _lasting peace_ on us, they still treat us as underlings? I'm surprised there haven't been any indicents yet."

"Incidents?" the Geth Prime asked with what sounded like caution. Shala'Raan raised her hand slightly as if wanting to say something intrusive, but thought better of it and chose to see where this would lead.

"Give it up, Gerrel," Hackett said gruffly, "Nobody's stupid enough to even try shooting at the Reapers, not after we've learned that Indoctrination works differently on our new synthetic forms," he went on, almost snarling when he said _'indoctrination'_, "It's a miracle the Reapers themselves are being **this** polite already."

"They're not polite, just pragmatic," Aria chimed in, smug as always, "They know more about our new state more than we can probably ever hope to, and they simply don't need the nuisance of shooting at us again, not if the rumours are true."

"You mean the ones about their sludge turning sentient on them?" Balak asked. Everyone turned to look at him, as the Batarian's presence on the Fleet Command was barely tolerated - even the Quarian Special Projects fleet was larger than his, and truth be told, nobody except for Aria liked the man himself, xenophobic warmonger that he was. "From my understanding, instead of a unified conscience, the Reapers are now... well, like the Geth used to be before. You know. _Before_," he repeated, making a vage gesture around his head, implying their upgrade to full-scale AI status. Everybody was dancing around the issue of the Geth and their rising self-conscience, including the replacement of the word "organic" - as mostly inapplicable in the new situation - by "non-Geth", as the only other synthetic race in the galaxy were the Reapers, and not many called them synthetic even before the Crucible was discovered.

"Yes, those very ones, Captain," Aria replied sweetly, probably enjoying the irritation this caused to the other members of the meeting. Unlike Balak's, her pull was substantial, between the ships, the troops and the embargo on drugs and other illicit wares that she helped enforce during wartime to keep the troops of the other races as "clean" as possible. None of that mattered **now**, but the respect lingered. Aria was a force to be reckoned with, and in an open confrontation between the Command members, it would probably be down to a standoff between her and Wreav, one that the Krogan would undoubtedly eventually win.

The War Room's doors slid open with a hiss, letting in two figures - a Quarian and a Geth. They looked oddly alike, even in coloration - between the Quarian's dark-grey-and-black envirosuit and the Geth's black-and-dark-red, they looked like they came out of the same production line of mechanical humanoids. Most of the former organics found the evolutionary path of the New Geth somewhat offputting, as their desire to be less different from their Creators led them to make their designs resemble the envirosuits more and more. Some Geth were even experimenting with projecting holographic simulations of Quarian-like faces on their "faceplates", but those were few and far between.

"Admiral Xen? To what do we owe this honour?" Admiral Hackett asked with a slight hint of amusement. While he could more easily relate to Han'Gerrel, Daro'Xen was the one member of the Quarian Admiralty that he hated the least - she, at least, seldom hid her true intentions behind politics and the backs of others. If there were dirty deeds to do, she did them herself. She seldom lied, manipulated or went back on her word, and even then, never denied doing so. In short, Han'Gerrel was a politician's soldier, and Shala'Raan was a politician's politician while Daro'Xen was a soldier's mad scientist. For a soldier's soldier like Hackett, that meant a lot.

"There's been a new development with the Geth Consensus, as Kyth'rri here informs me," Xen began, indicating the Geth platform that followed her into the room, "She has brought some interesting facts to my attention."

The room fell silent for a moment, even more silent than before, with the exception of the Quarians' cycling envirosuits and the Geths' occasional whirr or creak of mechanisms, as everyone processed the avalanche of implications behind Xen's words. Aria smiled mischeviously, looking at Xen, then shifting her gaze to the other Quarian Admirals present. Clearly, this was much more of a shock to them- and not only them.

"Pardon, development in Consensus? Why was not informed?" the Prime asked, vocally, in a surprising manner. Its tone was neutral - not all the Geth had mastered inflections yet - but it was obvious that it was less-than-pleased with the way things were going. The Geth Consensus was the unified hive mind that connected all the Geth into one giant network - but its role was changing after the Reaper upgrades turned each Geth runtime into an individual, with free will, independant free thought and an intelligence level that didn't require at least five of them to network together in order to be able to solve something more complex than a quadratic equation.

"Forgiveness, Prime Unit," the Geth introduced as Kyth'rri replied with what sounded like shame, "Received uplink from Consensus, carried out instructions instantly, no time for interface, as ordered." _She_ followed her words with a burst of static that everyone recognized as Geth code - even with the cybernetic enhancements, nobody present in the room could quite comprehend what it contained - and that seemed to change things.

"Acknowledged. Proceed," the Prime relented, flexing back from the openly aggressive stance it had assumed.

"If you'll permit another question, Admiral," Shala'Raan interjected before Xen or Kyth'rri could say anything, "But... A Geth with a name? And did you call it _'she'_? Didn't you yourself subscribe to the idea that the Geth were merely tools?"

"That was **before**, Raan, before we became like them. We cannot be Creators if we are no different from them, and now that they're fully sentient, they are free to choose their names and what to do with them. Kyth'rri is-"

"-a name from the ancient myths, I'm aware," Raan nodded.

"Yes. And that is a female name. Self-determination includes the ability to identify as whatever you please," Xen explained, her tone similar to the one used to explain something to a backwards child, "Can we please move on to the actual news?"

* * *

Stacy crinkled her nose at the instructions. _Detain by any means necessary._ That sounded like police work, not something a hospital nurse should be doing. The mysterious woman with a man's name didn't feel completely_there_ - not a sensation that Stacy could describe at length, but not dissimilar to Mrs. Stevenson's issue with her potted plant. Perhaps the transformation into cybernetic organisms changed something in the sensory input? Added a seventh sense? (It was seventh as Stacy was convinced that the sixth one existed and was reserved for sexual energies - therefore concluding that the Asari were in full control of theirs in order to be able to manipulate any member of any race into liking them).

"How long did they said it'd take?" the woman asked. Again. There seemed to be a problem with her short-term memory, because she kept asking the same questions as if she didn't get any answers to them. Long-term memory seemed to be functioning more or less okay - she remembered having made that weird call, for example, and she did it **from** the hospital.

"A few hours, maybe," she replied vaguely, looking back at her datapad. She still used it ever after the transformation - some called it The Shift, some called it The Change, a few of the more morbid types insisted it be called Synthesis, the doomsayers tried to call it The Reckoning, but none of them could adequately explain how being turned into a living machine was supposed to reckon anything. Not because she couldn't quite grasp the new data-processing abilities which people said they now all had - though she really couldn't - but because it gave her comfort that at least some things hadn't changed. In the chaos of the transition, finding any beacon of stability was a relief.

The problem was, the Change also effected a lot of, well, changes. Blood was no longer blood - although chemically it remained almost the same, it now functioned primarily as a coolant for the biosystems of the new techno-organic construct, with a retained secondary purpose of filtering contaminants from the organs. Oxygen transmission was now unimportant as the cells no longer required it - and therefore, the lungs were now rudimentary buoyancy devices at best.

"Good. Not sure if I can wait any longer," the woman said glumly, "This isn't my body, you understand."

"Of course it isn't," Stacy agreed, half-listening, trying to make heads or tails of the weird results the CAT scan made of the woman's head. MRIs were no longer an option - the magnetic fields played hell with the modified nervous systems of all the organics, so apparently they were now little more that huge piles of absurdly expensive obsolete junk that took up a lot of space and ate a lot of electricity.

The holorepresentation of her brain was a messy tangle of whatever it was that neurons turned into with the Change, and not that indicative of anything in particular. The sad truth was, modern medicine was all built around knowing what the various bits and bobs in a body did and what they were made of. An overnight change in both pretty much swept the legs out from under every doctor in the world. No, scratch that, in the entire galaxy!

"You... don't believe me, do you?" the woman called Shepard asked curiously, tilting her head on the side. It caused her asymmetrical haircut to fall down on her eyes, drawing an exasperated sigh from her, "And that's why I **never** grew my hair out."

Both of the women turned to face the ward door as it opened, letting in one of the hospital's doctors - Mark O'Reilly, trauma surgeon, womanizer, charades mastermind and overall friendly chap. He flashed a trademark smile at them - it looked slightly off because of the greenish hazy glow that the Change brought to everyone's, well, _everything._ Stacy smiled back, but the mystery woman only raised a quizzical eyebrow.

"Everything alright with our- patient?" Mark asked, taking the offered datapad from Stacy and taking in her half-certain shrug in response. He flicked through the readouts, admitting to himself that he was mostly putting up appearances. While his actual task at the hospital suffered the least from the Change - people still got hurt, and bones could still be set and stitches made and dislocations replaced, and flesh still apparently healed, somehow - taking patient vitals was a nightmare. Pulse as an indicator no longer existed, brainwave activity shifted to different frequencies which were still being rediscovered by trial and error, blood chemistry was altered into unrecognizability, and tying in any and all alterations in it to actual maladies and conditions would probably take months, if not years. And that all just working off the assumption that all the old ones stayed the same and didn't mutate in their new cozy electronic realm.

"So, uh, how do we... address you?" he asked warily, looking up at the woman. "I mean, until your identity is confirmed by whoever it is the Alliance is sending over and-"

"Shepard will do, I think," she replied sternly. "And doctor-"

"Yes?"

"Whatever this body might look like, it's not mine. I'm a man. Smile at me like that again and we might have a problem."

* * *

The trip itself was rather uneventful. Looking at the viewscreen showed her only debris that the various ships skittering to and fro - human, Quarian, Geth, sometimes even Reaper - were collecting and depositing in the multitudes of freighters - predominantly Quarian - for recycling and possible recovery of salvageable parts. Karin Chakwas leaned back in her seat, closing her eyes, letting her mind turn inwards on itself and the various entertaining thoughts that were rattling inside her skull ever since that call came in.

She was going to meet Shepard. Who was not dead. At least according to this weird call - some woman in London got imbued with Shepard's memories right during The Event. This opened a huge can of worms, one undoubtedly already being explored by the Salarians and Quarians in their usual "tampering with things best left untampered with" mode that had already led to the creation of the Krogan Genophage and the Geth.

All of this made no sense. So far, there was no indication that the mind got digitized along with the body. Her own thought processes and memories felt pretty much the same as before, and she was certain that this was the first time she had ever heard of it happening - and as what amounted to Chief Royal Medic of the High Court of the Systems Alliance (as one of the techs suggested yesterday, it earned him a wry grin and a smack upside the head from Admiral Hackett, who was defined as the King-Emperor, Guardian and Protector of the Realm of the Systems Alliance) she knew pretty much everything that got put on the Extranet that had anything to do with medical developments in light of The Event.

As such, a bunch of Russian medical students already kitbashed a firmware upgrade for omni-tools - for now, only Serrice ones, but they're working on porting it to the other companies' tools day and night - that would let the user tap into basic bodily functions of the wearer. It was mostly proof-of-concept, but for a technology that was less than a week old, being able to control your heart rate without any implants by simply activating a button on your omni-tool was a pretty decent _Hello World_. This morning she already saw the subscriptions to their Extranet page skyrocket - there were already externally-made modules of varying usefulness. One Japanese programmer figured out several access points and quickly coded a fresh function for the program - orgasm at the press of a button. However, this was all ultimately beneficial - crowdsourcing would help figure things out and field-test them in relatively controlled conditions of people trying to one-up each other, saving time and money for the scientists and specialists that were supposed to put all of that to good use in saving people's lives.

After all, theoretically, such a program was a godsend for any doctor - being able to pause and restart the heart at the press of a button. Checking readouts of the brain, the heart, muscle functions, just by accessing the person's omni-tool. The potential was limitless... As was the possible harm.

And one living example of the possible harm was waiting for her in London, feeling who knows what, stuck with an unknown amount of Shepard on top of some other person's memories, personality, hopes and dreams... and to make matters worse, it just **had** to be a woman.

* * *

"So, let me get this straight-" Doctor McAllister, the only surviving psychologist in the hospital's employ, asked incredulously, "-you're Commander Shepard, or at least his** memories**, somehow downloaded into the brain of this poor woman?"

They moved Shepard to the hospital's canteen to free up the ward - a building collapsed not more than two blocks away from the hospital, killing two people and injuring seven, all of which were ferried into the hospital, straining its already-depleted staff even further. As the rush died down and the new arrivals were settled in, Shepard became the centre of attention for the unoccupied staff. Not because of who **he** was, but because of what **she** represented. A new, unexpected and highly interesting development of the Change - that minds and memories were little more than digital data, to be stored and transferred and copied and that opened the door for the scariest question of all. _Are we more than just our memories and experiences put together?_

"Susan Davies, according to her ID," Shepard replied, still flinching every time he (she?) spoke, jolted by the disconnection of the expected voice and the one that actually spoke out loud. "Basically, it's as if someone overwrote Susan with Shepard, but didn't do too good of a job - I can remember being both of them, but there is more of Shepard than of Susan."

"So that is why you identify as Shepard, as a man?"

"Yes. If I were still human, I would assume that Susan was somehow still in here, but... That's not how it works now, is it?" The exasperation in his/her voice was palpable.

"We honestly don't know," McAllister admitted, "Which is why we're hoping that whatever is happening to you could shed some light on the _new_ human condition."

"Are we even human at this point?" O'Reilly asked, walking in, his scrubs stained with blood - the new kind, which quickly grew pitch-black and solidified when exposed to air. He didn't look particularly happy about whatever it is that went down in the operating room, staring at the soda machine with a frustrated look. "Because soda certainly tastes a lot different from what it used to. Is it because it Changed too - or because our Change was too drastic and screwed up the taste buds?"

"Not the only thing it screwed up, it seems," McAllister added glumly, "Food is weird. I need a lot less to feel full now, and don't even get me started on what happened to most of it," He paused to shudder, "I used to**love** yoghurt. And now-"

He was interrupted by the entrance of two uniformed men - armed, but their guns were holstered - accompanying a woman in the spacer version of a lab coat, whose name tag identified her as a Dr. Chakwas.

"I was told I could find the woman that called herself Shepard here-" she began, pausing to realize that the room only held one woman other than herself.

"Dr. Chakwas," Susan/Shepard said, getting up, "You're a sight for sore eyes."

"That remains to be determined... Commander," Chakwas replied, visibly trying to remain impassive and failing, "We have to officially confirm your identity."

"How do you propose to do that? Quiz me on everything I went through? I can save you the trouble-" Shepard began, taking a tentative step forward.

"Commander. **Not** in front of civilians," the doctor reprimanded, "Gentlemen, could you find us a room where we could be left alone for a while? Preferrably one that is not on the main throughfare, as I see the hospital is rather full today."

"I think your best bet for that right now would be the morgue, ma'am. Hardly anyone stays there more than necessary to deposit a body ever since... You know," O'Reilly replied, trying and failing to contrive a way to say "Change" without sounding like a little scared kid or a religious nut and managing to sound like both at the same time because of it.

"The morgue it is, then. Lead the way."


	3. Chapter Two - Looking Forward

**CHAPTER TWO - LOOKING FORWARD**

Daro'Xen settled into her seat, cupping her face - _her face!_ - in her hands. The texture of her envirosuit's gloves felt rough against the bare skin, a sensation few Quarians ever experienced and not all of which lived to tell the tale... at least until The Event. That was the closest approximation for the Quarian word they almost unanimously chose to denote the moment they all became one with their creations. A sudden sound from the quarters' door made her practically jump out of her seat, but she settled back down quickly when she saw who it was.

"Ah, Kyth'rri. Anything else you wanted to say?" Xen asked wearily, wondering if it would be safe to remove the rest of the envirosuit, then pausing to wonder if it would be appropriate to do it right now, given the new context. Settling on doing it later, she switched her full attention back to the black-and-red Geth standing in the doorway.

"Creator-Admiral-" she began, somewhat timidly. The Quarian smiled inwardly at how quickly she accepted the fact that some Geth may adopt a gender identity - though probably not as quickly as the Geth themselves arrived at the concept.

"I told you, drop it. You know as well as I do that we are undeserving of that title now," Xen interrupted with a gesture of her hand.

"Admiral Xen, query?" Kyth'rri corrected herself, and, with Xen's permissive nod, went on, "Why did the Fleet Command react so?"

"They'll come around, you'll see. This is a wonderful opportunity for all of us and it cannot just be thrown away because of some stupid ethical concerns. They'll work around it, build some sort of regulations to make themselves feel better about it, then do all, or almost all, that we proposed."  
The Geth nodded, almost imperceptibly, along with her words. It seemed that each coming day, they evolved further, or at least, tried to, emulating the mannerisms of - well, "organics".

"And now, if you'll excuse me, I would like to be alone for a while," Xen finished. Kyth'rri nodded, this time more boldly, and stepped back through the door. Once it closed shut, Xen thumbed a few buttons on the control panel so that it couldn't be opened from the outside (excepting maybe a battering ram or high explosives), and started unclasping the front of her envirosuit.

* * *

Three hours earlier, there had been shouting in the War Room of the station.

"Xen, what the hell are you doing?!" Admiral Shala'Raan yelled in a somewhat undignified manner, watching her colleague disengage the locks on her envirosuit faceplate. Pulling it aside, Xen revealed her face - which nobody present in the room had ever seen before. She was smiling, or trying to, decades of not really using facial muscles for conveying emotions demonstrating that there were some thing that you couldn't instantly learn.

"I'm showing you the future, Shala," the Quarian technarch responded, shattering her faceplate against the floor. The sound made everyone else snap out of their shocked stupor, staring intently at the hazy green glow of her eyes, the greenish-blue traces of cyber-implant circuitry along her cheekbones and lower jaw. While it was common knowledge that Quarians routinely jacked themselves full of cybernetic implants, judging from the reactions, nobody except the Salarian seemed to be prepared for the sight of what a cyber-implanted person converted by the Change would look like.

On later recollection, Aria admitted to herself that Daro'Xen was beautiful, inasmuch as a humanoid robot can be, but the Queen of Omega also noted that she was probably the only one to draw that conclusion. Wreav looked like he saw some sort of monster to be killed, as the absence of the Rachni envoy did not give him ample reason to vent his bloodlust at anything. Hackett pursed his lips, but said nothing, his face a mask of cold, calculating calmness. Aria mused that they both were probably now trying to invent new ways of killing whatever it was that Quarians had become, just in case, as apparently Xen did not fear exposure to unfiltered air anymore.

"What future? Dying of infection?" Han'Gerrel chimed in, finally snapping out of his torpor, compounded by the fact that he belatedly realized that he and Shala'Raan probably did not look that much different from Xen under_their_ faceplates.

"No, you simpleton, surviving anything," Xen rebutted with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Do you not understand what happened? We no longer need to breathe. We are stronger, better than before, and in perfect communion with our implants. We are now **digital** beings, these bodies merely sheathes for what we really are."

"And what would that be, Quarian?" Wreav asked with disgust. He looked as if he was seriously considering shooting her in the face, but simultaneously regretted not being allowed to bring weapons in the room.

"AIs, Urdnot Wreav," Xen replied condescendingly, this time succeding with a proper smile. It looked highly unnerving to everyone present, as if some sort of uncanny sculpture depicting a robot woman came to life and decided to flirt with them, "Except we're not artificial. Not in the strict sense. We don't have a term for that, because as far as I know, nobody has ever succeeded at digitizing an organic mind before, and now it's been done to us all! Don't you understand what this means?"

"That it can be handled as any other digital data?" Hackett ventured, his open palm indicating the uncertainty.

"Precisely! No more bother with jails - download someone from their body, put them in a VR sim that can house thousands of inmates while physically being the size of a room. While they're out, do something productive with the body, like rent it out to the war veteran who lost both his legs in a war for his homeworld," Xen's speech sped up with excitement as she recounted the possibilites that seemed to flow into her head from an endless stream of impressions, "You no longer need to physically travel across the galaxy when you can transfer your digitized mind through the Extranet to be downloaded into a body prepared on the other end, conduct your business and be sent back!"

"That would open avenues to all kinds of... criminal activity," Katru ventured cautiously, casting a wary sideways glance at Aria, who scowled at him in return, "Not to mention the fact that this could mean someone could... duplicate themselves."

* * *

The two women sat opposing each other on chairs in the morgue, not even paying much attention to the half-deformed corpses around them, reshaped by the Change into something entirely subhuman - apparently they were already dead when it happened, and whatever drove the alterations could not process them properly. One burst when its ribs were turned into sharp metal, while another - half-autopsied at the cruicial moment, apparently - looked like it was filled to the brim with circuitry and wires. Next to them, the body of someone who apparently only recently expired looked obscenely mundane, only looking like an off-colour _normal_ corpse with circuitry embedded in its skin.

"So, how are you going to find out if it's really me?"

"Well, obviously not genetic testing-"

"Because of the body?"

"Because it no longer works, Shepard," Dr. Chakwas said with an exasperated sign, "Most of modern medicine has been turned on its head, driven insane by whatever it is you caused up there. What was it, exactly?"

"The exact words were, I believe, _an entirely new framework, a new DNA_, but I'm not too sure on the details," the woman who called herself Shepard replied, "The Head Reaper AI was trying its hardest to convince me it was the best way out of them having to convert us into more of them for not being enough like them so we wouldn't make more like them ourselves. It sounded very sincere, too."

"That's **a load of bullshit**, Shepard. We're machines now, for better or for worse. Biological in structure, but synthetic in nature, however that works," Chakwas objected, "And machines do not **have** DNA. It's a strictly organic element. And why would you go along with it anyway?"

"As opposed to wiping out the Geth by way of permanently disabling any electronic device in the entire galaxy that was more advanced than a toaster? Or replacing King Reaper with a digital copy of myself that may or may not come to the same conclusions and _modus operandi_ as he did? Not a lot of alternatives there, doctor." Shepard replied with a smile that was a little unsettling - it was familiar to the doctor, but on an unfamiliar face it looked alien and even somewhat grotesque, as if a badly doctored image. "The Crucible turned out to be more of a curse than a blessing, I'd say. I thought I was going for the outcome that would do the least damage in the long run."

"Ah, so turning the entire galaxy into techno-organic cyborgs was the lesser of three evils?" the doctor asked sarcastically, crossing her arms across her chest.

"I honestly don't remember much of anything after being told my options," Shepard protested, shaking her head, "So, was this your test?"

"Well, you react like the Shepard I expected, so consider this a "yes". The question remains, what do we do with you?" the doctor asked, tapping the tip of her chin with her fingers in thought.

"_We?_"

"Ah, you probably haven't heard. For the time being, the governmental functions - at least as far as the races locked in the Sol System are concerned - are being carried out by the heads of the respective fleets. Or were supposed to, anyway," she added somewhat bitterly, "The Asari are not playing ball, isolating themselves while they sort out the Banshee situation."

"Sort it out in what sense, exactly?" Shepard asked, cocking her head to the side. The asymmetrical haircut once again blocked her field of vision, eliciting a muttered curse and a very unladylike brushing away of the stray locks to be tucked away behind an ear.

"Whatever the Crucible did, it also freed any Reaper creations from their control," the doctor explained carefully, "This means the husks - any and all of them - are once again self-aware, retaining most of their pre-conversion memories. Not all of them, or their parent races, had taken this well."

"Great. Just great. I suppose that any revelation of my reincarnation would, in the late Councillor Udina's words, be a _political shitstorm_?"

"Yes," the doctor nodded, "Possibly one that would undo the Alliance, so I advise strongly against it, at least for the time being. You need to lay low until we figure out how you got into this poor woman."

"Her name's Susan Davies, according to her omni-tool data, she's a computer engineer from Manchester that was in London visiting her relatives when the Reapers imposed their curfew rules. As I understood from her diary - which got progressively less readable the more recent the events - she has no surviving next of kin," Shepard reported, as if already prepared for this speech.

"That does not mean that we shouldn't try to figure out if her own personality and memories are recoverable," Chakwas noted, "And to do that, we need to first extricate **you** somehow."

"I have a theory, but it will take time and extraordinary political tapdancing," Shepard replied smugly, "Which, may I remind you, I cannot participate in on account of _being dead_. _**Again**_."

"Alright, I'm listening."

* * *

Nurse Brian Peters was not having a good day. The evening was falling down on London, but the end of his shift was nowhere in sight in this chaotic wartime state, and what began as mildly weird (with Mr. Prescott in 207th expiring of apparently natural causes, signified in part by the extinguishing of the green glow in his eyes) has quickly escalated to out-of-the-ordinary with the arrival of the Alliance official (currently in the morgue, with her guards, presumably interrogating a walk-in patient about something) and upgraded itself officially to having lost its shit with the dozen or so Husks walking into the hospital under armed escort. One of them, wheezing heavily from the apparently botched conversion process that left his neck stuck at an odd angle, tried to speak to his convoy, but all he got in response was a stern look and a twitch that looked like a timely-supressed inkling to smash its face in with the butt of the soldier's rifle.

The soldier at the fore of the procession approached the reception desk which Brian was manning and produced a datapad.

"Under standing order number-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know the drill," Brian interrupted, switching forms on his own datapad, "I need digital stamps here and here," he waited while the soldier added the stamps with his omni-tool, "And the manifest. You got their names down?"

"Of the ones that can speak or write, yes. The rest are your problem," the soldier replied, flicking the files over from his datapad, his Elysian accent getting thicker with annoyance, "Where do we put them?"

"You don't **put** anybody anywhere. You **escort** these _people_ to the fifth floor where the nursing staff will sort them into rooms," a strict-looking bearded man said, walking up to the soldier. He was wearing a standard lab smock, but it looked outdated somehow, as if he had owned it his entire career and simply refused to give it up. The obvious patches where burns and what looked like a varren's teeth marks were haphazardly covered up only underscored that it had quite a history and so, probably, did the man wearing it. That, more than anything, seemed to convince the soldier to take a cautious step back.

"W-what will happen to usss?" one of the husks wheezed at the bearded doctor, understandably taking him for a friend in all this.

"We'll sort you out, see if we can help you regain at least some degree of your former appearance or self, and then you're off into the big bad world again," the man replied solemnly, "I'm sorry we cannot do more, but we are already stretched pretty thin."

"I ssee," the husk replied, "At least it's..." he paused for a sharp intake of breath, "Better than what we had... before."

The pointed silence didn't last as the soldier, obviously still ticked off about the idea of a husk talking or having human rights, signalled for the grisly procession to move to the elevators to get them off his hands as quickly as possible.

The bearded doctor turned to Brian, resting against the counter.

"You know, I have this nagging feeling like the war isn't over," he said after a short contemplative silence (which Brian filled with filing away the names of the newly-arrived husks, wincing every time he came across what the soldiers put down as the names of the John and Jane Smiths, like Rick Cheese or Helen Zass. With the dozen new arrivals, that put the husk populace contained in the hospital at about half a hundred - the fifth floor was about to become a corrall at this point.

"What do you mean, sir?" Brian asked, looking up at the doctor. Martin Leifsson didn't look much like a Viking, perhaps because of being rather thin, or maybe because of the colour of his skin, but the point remained - as the hospital's administrator, he had commanded a lot of respect, and his opinion, both as a doctor and as an administrator, meant a lot to his employees (some would even say subjects).

"This. Everything. The Reapers didn't quite win, we didn't quite lose. The war isn't over, we're just pretending that everything's okay now that the big floaty things aren't making minced meat of us anymore, but we're too occupied with sorting out the dead from-" he paused to look over his shoulder, the soldiers and the husks long gone from the lobby, "-the dying. Waiting. Everyone's waiting for something to happen. You know that feeling you get before the rain?"

"With the heavy air and the vanishing breeze? Yes, sir," Brian nodded.

"Had one like that since this morning. As if something had already changed, but we just haven't noticed it yet."

* * *

"Alright, everybody, time for the night shift to set in," Mark announced to the roomful of hospital staff, some going on shift, some going off. At Leifsson's insistence, everyone without urgent life-or-death things to do had to sit in on these meetings as the staff tried to fill in the blanks of the new human condition. "Updates of the last few hours are..."

As he paused to check his notes, nobody really noticed the room gain two new attendants, the weird walk-in patient from last night and the Alliance envoy sent to interrogate her.

"Mr. Prescott in 207th has passed on to whatever digital heaven or hell we go to now, I guess. This being our third post-Change death, I think we can safely agree that the eye glow is a semi-reliable lifesign, definitely tied in to the bodily functions," he tapped his omni-tool, putting up holo-pictures of the man's eyes, apparently made before and after death. "No way yet to measure what else they show, but there's been reports from the other side of the pond that the glow may somehow change depending on the heart rate, too. Moving on," he killed the photos, "The omni-tool upgrades can now be installed onto Armali and Kassa units, which means most of the hospital tools can now at least reliably monitor the patients' conditions. The French have deciphered the EM waves supposedly emitted by the brain, and we can get these as a numerical readout, but there's not enough data yet on how to interpret them in relation to the patient's state of health."

Murmurs in the gathered crowd rolled across the room, predominantly variations on jokes about brain-dead patients.

"There's been buzz on the Extranet that we can supposedly interface with each other for non-vocal communications, both wirelessly and through touch, like the Geth apparently do, but so far all the people claiming that have not been able to provide any definitive proof or how-to guides. There's implications that this might make mental illnesses transmissible, so if you figure it out, be careful, alright?"

A subdued wave of tired laughs was his answer. The supposed Singularity wasn't that much of a welcome addition to the usual mood of either people going off the day shift or those going onto the night one.

"Finally, the thing to people who report they can de-focus and re-focus their eyes in a wider range than before: they sometimes fail to re-focus on nearby items for a while after that due to eye strain. Most usual eye drops don't seem to work, but, surprisingly, a small amount of medi-gel helps ease the stress. That's about all the news for now," he finished, stepping off the designated podium (which was in actuality a medi-gel shipment crate put on its side - the hospital's actual auditorium was destroyed by a Reaper beam two days before the Change).

Dr. Leifsson took his place, running a careful hand along his receding hair, a gesture that he could never quite get rid of, sort of a nervous tic that reared its head only when he had to talk to a crowd.

"In addition, you may have heard the rumours that are floating about the hospital," he began, watching his loyal staff respond with knowing nods, "And I've been advised by the Alliance that it is within our interests that we keep this secret to ourselves. Dr. Chakwas?" he nodded at the envoy, prompting her to get up from her seat along with her charge. He vacated the speaking-space of the podium for the two women, standing himself off to the side instead of seating back down.

"Thank you, Dr. Leifsson, for being discreet about this. My name is Karin Chakwas, and as many of you may know, I've been assigned to lead the research project on the changes the Change brought to human biology. You are also aware, at least in part, that we have our own special project looking us right in the face right here: Commander Shepard's mind, downloaded through some unknown means into this woman's body."  
Shepard gave an awkward nod to the crowd when their eyes converged on him (her?).

"For all intents and purposes, she **is** Commander Shepard, because that is the only memory, the only identity, in control of the body. Since the Commander was present at what we assume to have been Ground Zero for The Change, this should also remain a secret," Chakwas continued gravely, her face suddenly looking severe in the weak light of the storage room that was re-appropriated for meeting use, "If **any** word of this gets out, we may be looking at an interplanetary diplomatic fallout of unpredictable proportions. This is, however, also a unique opportunity to explore how the Change has affected our minds - they can apparently be transferred like digital data, and that brings me to the point: figuring out how to get the Commander out to find out whether Susan Davies can get her body back, or if there even **is** a Susan Davies left to come back for it."

The staff attempted to murmur, but was stifled by the doctor's gesture.

"But that is my task, finding the right team, the right tools for the job. Your task, my colleagues, will be to keep Shepard safe and under observation. Take notes of anything - _anything_ - out of the ordinary. And put him- well, _her_- to work, as you would any other volunteer."

"Which brings us to an important matter. Two, in fact," Mark chimed in, getting up from his seat, "First: what do we call you? Second: what can you do?"

"Glad you're not objecting. You can call me Jane, I guess," Shepard replied, somewhat bashfully, "Jane Serrano, that should be easy enough to remember and should repel any questions about my accent," she went on, with a small grin, her American accent didn't stand out on the street, but it would in a fully-local hospital staff, "And I can do whatever you need me to do. I know battlefield medicine, I can set broken bones and right dislocated joints, I can operate, repair and rewire military-grade machinery inside and out, and since Susan was an engineer, she has the muscle memory not far removed from what I had," she paused in thought, watching the eyes of the crowd, "I also have extensive experience at killing things, so that gives me a passable knowledge of alien and human anatomy on a lethality and importance level," she admitted as a finisher.

"Very well, Jane," Dr. Leifsson replied, "I'm sure we'll find a good use for you."

"One last thing," Dr. Chakwas said, "We have no guarantee that Susan Davies was the only one afflicted with this state - there can easily be more Shepard-infected - _no offense, Jane - _people out there, not all of them necessarily human. I'm guessing they, too, will try to reach out to the Alliance through secure channels, if you do not mind, I will redirect them here, citing a Jane Serrano as their contact. After she secures their co-operation, use them as you would her."

"Where would be our benefit in having more mouths to feed and bodies to shelter?" someone from the back row called out. Shepard smirked, thinking it was probably someone from the support staff - cook, maybe.

"Hands to work and minds to study," Chakwas responded without missing a beat, "Hands that can, if the push comes to shove, defend you and your hospital from anything that might threaten it."


	4. Chapter Three - Finders Keepers

**CHAPTER THREE - FINDERS KEEPERS, LOSERS REAPERS**

"So we might be looking at... a **digital** epidemic?"

Hackett sounded as incredulous as someone deeply lost in thought can be. The end result was rather morose and would have looked disheartening in anyone else. For Hackett, however, this was the norm these days. Finding oneself making what amounted to life-and-death decisions for the entire human race was a heavy burden, but one nobody in particular seemed to be too keen to take off his shoulders, and even if they tried, they'd probably have to kill him in order to make him let go.

"Of sorts. We don't know how it worked, we don't know how many are affected, we can't even reliably identify the afflicted without coming up to them and asking whether they are Commander Shepard, which is rather daft, to be honest," Dr. Chakwas replied in a small voice. She was tired from the two long hauls she had to get through, and the emotional turmoil of both the fact and the nature of Shepard's un-death did not make things easier. "The best bet right now is the informant system. Anyone using Shepard's communication access codes from now on will be referred to our Patient Zero, "Jane Serrano", for further orders, where she will detain them until we formulate a way to deal with them. So far s- well, _she_ seems stable enough to be able to manage them responsibly."

They were walking through the corridors of the MSV Hong Kong, or whatever was left of the parts that went into the foundation of Citadel Station. It was a rough hack job of stitching together a downed cruiser of every race in the Allied Fleet - but it worked. It signified both the losses sustained in this war, and the hopes of the future that may be built on its remains. It was also a half-decent attempt at recycling, because the space around Earth was littered with debris and fragments of starship and Reaper alike. Day and night crews of Volus, Quarian and Geth ships scurried to and fro in their little tugs, pulling the larger bits aside and collecting the smaller ones into containers, to be melted down, turned towards further construction on the Station or repairs for the ships that still needed them.

"But are you sure that putting them all in one place - if there even _is_ more than one of them to begin with - is a good idea?"

"Admiral, at this point, I'm not sure of anything."

* * *

After an awkward offering of help in repairs extended to the Reapers at the behest of the Geth Consensus because of the truce (which they turned down, although not without a surprised admission that the idea of even being offered help was beyond their expectations), it became clear that the debris field also presents a treasure trove of information. All those dead Reapers were apparently of little interest to the living ones - just as the Geth reverently collected even the tiniest scrap of a downed platform in every battlefield they could get to without being shot at in order to recycle it to make new Geth platforms, the Reapers did the exact opposite. It was as if seeing their own kind dead revulsed them, especially now that they were little different from their former victims. That apprehension of their own... mortality... apparently scared them far more than their newfound state of schizophrenia caused by the resurgence of conscious thought in most of the souls absorbed to create their cores.

Consequently, everyone and their pyjak's uncle that owned a ship and was not busy with building, repairs or ferrying passengers, turned into a scrap collector overnight. It was a job that paid in a situation where owning a ship had limited uses when you couldn't go interstellar on anything other than your own FTL drives, and there wasn't much in the way of destinations to go TO if you decided to swing that way. So most didn't.

In the end, it meant that those that _were_ busy with building and repairing were in no shortage of materials, while those ferrying and those being ferried had no shortage of things to ogle in the viewports. The only thing set aside in all of that was the Reaper scrap - carefully delivered to the location of the Quarian Science Fleet and the Salarian and Volus ships that augmented it in the aftermath of the lockdown imposed by the Crucible's activation.

* * *

"What do you think that was, originally?" Haruk asked of his partner, knocking on the giant metal... thing's plating. They were hooking up the giant magnetic seals to yet another bit of Reaper scrap, but its purpose remained unclear. It obviously wasn't a piece of the tentacle-cannons, or the main hull, it looked more like some sort of escape pod. But didn't Reapers not need crews, and therefore escape pods? It wasn't like they needed to escape anything, right? The husks weren't particularly valuable and the ship's AI core - or whatever amounted to one in a Reaper, as far as Haruk was concerned, was way too large to fit into this... whatever it was.

"Don't know, don't care. Let the gas-bags figure it out," the barefaced turian known mostly as Whisperer replied in his strangled voice. He was something of an oddity among the salvagers, both in his single-minded persistence in looking for something suspiciously specific in the Reaper wrecks - and he only took jobs on Reaper wrecks - and his very obvious battle-earned scars, including the very prominent one that gave everyone who dared a look their unspoken answer about his weird voice. It looked as if something tore through his throat and the tear was hastily repaired under battlefield conditions with as much medi-gel as could be found, which resulted in chaotic tissue regrowth, obstructing his windpipe and complicating both breathing and speech for him. He didn't speak of the chain of events that led to this outcome, and nobody dared to ask. Haruk had his own theories, but he also liked working with the bareface, and he liked breathing and living and (a rarity for Salarian) mating, and he planned on doing it for at least a few years longer, even if he had to keep glowing green while he was doing it. Which ultimately meant that whatever Whisperer said, Haruk didn't oppose.

"I'm just saying, it's like a coffin or something. What if there's... something inside? Or someone?" the Salarian persisted, "Y'know, could be worth a pretty penny if we bring it to the Salarian side of the Fleet instead of the Volus."

The turian made a strangled sound that Haruk knew to be his equivalent of a sigh, and finally shrugged.

"Fine. Mark it and put it aside from the other stuff," he conceded, gesturing vaguely back at their tug.

* * *

Every salvager quickly worked out their own work ethic - some used freighters and dropped the stuff they snagged inside, some used smaller tugs and tied or magnetized or omni-gelled the bits together. It all depended on the capital you had and under which circumstances you ended up locked in Sol to begin with. Haruk and Whisperer both came in with the mercenary force of the Terminus, led by the Pirate Queen of Omega, but, like many of the mercs comprising it, drifted off from the main force of 'made men' that were loyal to specific groups or teams. They were, for the lack of a better word, contractors, and their contract ran out once the fighting stopped, which meant seeking other avenues of gainful employment. In this case: salvage.

The Salarian was good with his eyes and good at figuring out what could be worth good money. The Turian was good at flying a tug in a way that didn't have the things they were hauling bash into one another from inertia, something many other salvagers had major problems with - only last week two ships whose crews the two knew very well went ka-blam because some clumsy suit-rat misread the scanner readings and overestimated the distance from his haul to the other ships and creamed the two other tugs against the side of a burnt-out asari capship. That was when Haruk learned another interesting thing the Change gave them: limited telepathy. The Quarian babbled something about near-field communications, but for the Salarian it was clear as day: whatever technomagic was at play, it let him FEEL rather than hear the dying screams of his friends, and it seemed he wasn't the only one.

The Quarian was lynched, his faceplate broken in and- he didn't suffocate, didn't even get a rash on his weird face. The shock of that was bad enough that he was even let go without any further trauma, the fear for his death trading places with surprise in his Change-green eyes that, like with all Quarians, glowed brightly enough to show even through his opaque faceplate, but became almost blinding once uncovered.

* * *

Xen stared at her handiwork in the holoprojector she rigged to function as a mirror. She stripped away whatever pieces of her spare envirosuit (abandoned due to a pressure leak she couldn't quite locate - totally irrelevant now) she considered unnecessary, ending up with a frame that covered her legs and torso, leaving her arms bare up to the elbows and her head fully exposed. Running her thin fingers through the hair that she, unlike many Quarian women, deliberately kept cut short, she ventured another smile, imitating the ones she saw the few times she was around humans - Shepard and his crew, mostly. It didn't come out like what she assumed it was supposed to look, even accounting for the differences between human and Quarian facial muscle layout. The scowl that followed in reaction, however, did.

She wondered if this made her more or less trusted by the other races. The show of skin, of unprotected flesh, seemed to be a universal gesture of goodwill and non-hostility, and trust was a resource Quarians did not have a lot to go around. Getting her ideas out would need her to get like-minded individuals to follow her, and preferrably some non-Quarians trusting her long enough to pay attention to what she was saying and-

Oh, right. Showing them what a Quarian really looks like might not be the best possible decision, all things considered. Even before the Change the cybernetic enhancements many of them opted for to enhance their frail physiques were intimidating, and now that they became an inseparable part of their anatomy... To a human, she certainly probably looked like a more slender, exquisite Husk, different jaw structure and hair notwithstanding. Not that different to an Asari, either. Krogans would be a problem, she knew, considering the reaction Warlord Wreav had when she undid her faceplate in front of the fleet commanders.

Xen was woken from her reverie by the chime of what passed for the doorbell. Remembering the absurd level of lockedupitude she subjected the door to, she sighed and reached for her omni-tool, noting quietly how weird her hands looked manipulating the hardlight haptic interface without the usual gloves. The door slid open to reveal a grey-haired human woman that looked at Xen with a mix of expectancy and bewilderment, before composing herself.

"Hello, Admiral Xen. I'm not sure if you remember me, my name is Doctor Karin Chakwas..."

* * *

"Huh, she's weird," Peters mumbled to no-one in particular.

"Hmm?" Watkins looked up from the day's report card she was filling in, having just gone off-duty.

"Shep- er- Serrano. You know. The special case."

"Oh, her? What's weird?" Stacy asked, trying to sound uninterested. It's not that she actually found the story of the guy that ended up in a woman's body uninteresting, but her mother did raise her with a strict code of conduct concerning other people's private affairs and as far as she was concerned, stalking someone just for them being in the body of the wrong gender constituted far more than that.

"Okay, get this, Leifsson's assigned her to the fifth floor," Brian began, gesticulating to display his general unease concerning the Husk Problem, "Y'know, helping out with the sorting and the taking of details and stuff."

"So? It's not like it's particularly hard, once you get past the thought that you're talking to robo-zombies," Stacy began before realizing the trap she just walked into, "Alright, **if** you get past it."

"That's the point. She's... casual about it. I think I've heard her joking, and them trying to laugh in return, inasmuch as they could manage to. Y'know, like they're... normal people."

"They **are** normal people, Brian, they just have an abnormal condition," she replied chidingly, getting up from her seat to stretch, her datapad forgotten on the desk now that the reports have been submitted. Time to clock out and head home. Or, well, what passed for home, considering her actual home got razed two months ago while she was on shift. She got over the loss of her stuff a lot easier than over the grief of losing her dog, spending almost two days in a tearful catatonia until Dr. Leifsson himself came round to her aunt's home to talk her out of it. The man was pure magic with words, the rumours _were_ true.

"You make it sound like they're just... sick, like a techno leper colony," Brian retorted, feeling the onslaught coming. Equality was something of a sticking point with Stacy, considering her mixed-race mixed-religion family.

"That's the **point**," she said, "That's pretty much what they are, and we're treating them no better than they used to treat lepers back in the day, too! And you're shocked that Shep- that _Jane_ is alright with treating them properly?"

"I'm just bothered by how _easy_ it seems to be for her."

"Think on it this way. She can relate. She's in the same boat, just with nicer rigging."

* * *

Jane Serrano's second day in the hospital went a lot better than the first. The nurse uniform fit the body of Susan Davies pretty well, the body itself responded to her mental orders better with each passing day, and the staff's slightly distant worried attitude towards her was no different than she remembered from her days of being Commander Shepard, First Human SPECTRE. The only thing bothering her was the haircut. As much as the idea of violating the body of Susan Davies didn't appeal to her, she had to use it for an undisclosed amount of time, and the fact that she was wearing the distinctly feminine nurse's uniform was as much concessions to her bodily gender as Jane was willing to commit.

And then there were the husks. Apparently, the hospital served as some sort of layover station for sorting out the once-more sapient former humans according to wherever they were spirited away from by their captors, and the staff shied away from husk duty. Jane found that to be irritating hypocrisy, considering both groups were now officially **former** humans, the only thing setting them apart was just the way and the degree to which they were... cybernetized? cybernized? she wasn't sure which word to best describe it with, but she knew that the people she was facing were as scared of what was done to them as she was. At least they had it better. They were in what was left of their **own** bodies.

And then again, Dragon's Teeth didn't discriminate. In fact, it was rather appalling to learn the degree to which they didn't discriminate - of the people she's interviewed so far, getting their personal details down in the finest details they could provide, none of them looked that much different to the others based on age alone. Hell, before today she never had the time to study the husks she saw long enough to notice that you _could_ tell their gender and even race apart despite the extensive homogenization the Dragon's Teeth forced on them. It was this homogenization that posed the most significant problem to begin with - it was rather hard to tell the poor souls apart unless you were deliberately numbering them, and Dr. Leifsson clearly stated he did not intend to turn this place into a concentration camp.

The end result worked something like this: The hospital has managed to acquire a hefty supply of nondescript slacks and shirts more dignified and more sturdy than basic hospital patient gowns, and handed them out to the admitted husks. As the attending nurses took down their personal information and the doctors free from dealing with the medical mysteries of the more human denizens of the hospital dealt with whatever problems these poor souls may be having themselves (the most common complaint was an error in the cybernetization process that left obstructions in the throat, complicating or entirely preventing normal speech), the nurses would provide the husks with datachips and ID cards containing the assembled information.

About the only thing helping the matters somewhat was the fact that huskification did not erase one's fingerprints, which made identifying residents of Earth moderately easy, provided they still had their appendages intact - unfortunately, a luxury not allotted to everyone.

"Vancouver, huh? I was actually born near there," she said, sliding back into conversation with the next patient, one Mr. Jay Nielsen, who actually stood out in the general crowd because what was left of his beard made his face rather unique in the peas-in-a-pod likeness that husks usually exhibited.

"R-really? W-what area?" Mr. Nielsen pondered, watching with interest as Jane scanned his fingerprints and studied the readouts on the datapad.

"Don't know where I was _born_ precisely, but I grew up all over the place," she replied absent-mindedly, trying to keep the memories of surviving on the streets at bay, "I was a street rat, you see."

"Oh. H-how'd you end up he-he-here?"

"Same as everyone else, I guess, the war does that to a person, you know? Went where I was needed, and ended up here when it all went down."

Apparently satisfied with her vague answer, Mr. Nielsen gratefully accepted both the stick-on badge with his name and mugshot onto his shirt and the chip with the data into his left arm. The doctors were quick to discover - and confirm through that unofficial mess of an information exchange that quickly encompassed the world once the Extranet's denizens realized how they could help humankind become civilized again through supporting the re-emerging medical sciences - that a standard husk's cybernetic enhancements actually included quite a lot of data ports, one of which was just the right type to accept Alliance standard data chips commonly embedded into dog tags. This would allow anyone with an omni-tool to quickly identify them if the need arose, which simplified their relocation to their former places of residence. Of course, provided these places could be reached with the current transportation limitations. Temporary camps were being erected all across the globe to sort and house the husks according to the colonies they originally came from, although that, of course, left the question of what to do with residents of colonies that no longer existed - Horizon, for example - but nobody was looking that far ahead. Not yet, anyway.

* * *

Coming down from the fifth floor, her first shift having ended (as a chime on her omni-tool informed her), Jane nearly crashed into Dr. Leifsson. Briefly pondering how someone of his apparent ethnicity ended up with a Nordic last name, she focused on the fact that he, apparently, was looking for her.

"There's an Alliance Marine asking for you down there," he said with a chuckle, "Says his name is Johann Sorensen. I don't know what sort of playbook you chaps are using, but I'd recommend at least including a footnote to bother changing your initials when picking false names, Ms. Serrano."


	5. Chapter Four - Songularity

**CHAPTER FOUR - THE SONGULARITY**

Chief Warden Fra'Kall of the Eastern Reaches was feeling impatient. Stroking his beard absent-mindedly, he paced the room, quietly fuming at the lateness of his opposite number from the Western Reaches, for to make the decision that faced them today they had to have at least two able-bodied Wardens present in front of the Council of Wives, and considering the recently-diagnosed insanity of the Northern Warden and the still unknown location of the Southern one, presumed deceased at the (metaphorical) hands of the Reapers or their thralls, this meant he and Ha'i'us were the only ones available.

"Curse this to dust, we have to elect new Wardens sooner or later, this waiting is not doing anybody any favors," he mumbled angrily, pausing to look at the timepiece mounted on the wall. It was an archaic thing, indicating that it was twenty units to the klask, which mean Ha'i'us was late by half a klask already.

"What is keeping that fool?" he wondered slightly louder, motioning for the door to slide open, which it did with a slight delay, the haptic elements still suffering from insufficient processing power despite all the optimizations made by the Engineering Caste across the last days to deal with the sudden crisis.

Stepping out into the corridor, he nearly bumped into a Wife, who was walking past the waiting room at an alarming pace.  
"What has transpired, oh Eternal One?" he asked of her, only to get an impatient gesture in response, she motioned for him to follow her.

With a resigned sigh, he followed, taking turn after turn through the Council building until they reached the observation deck of this floor, normally overlooking the Gardens of History, where the statues of their great ancestors stood and shared their lives with all those willing to listen. Today, however, the Gardens were cut off at the middle (rather rudely bisecting the statue of Bea'Ne The Handsome, the first female Warden) by a wall of what seemed to be computer static.

"The virtuality is failing, Warden," the Wife announced in a small voice that was full of sorrow that he knew too well, the sorrow fraught with the inevitability of death. "It would appear our freedom is short-lived, as this Reaper is dying."

Fra'Kall sighed again. What was left of the Inusannon population contained within the Reaper known as Collapser, whose true name was Galzair, fought tentacle and claw for the processor power of the Synthesized Reaper to craft this virtual recreation of their capitol city along with virtual representations of their harvested bodies, while they deliberated their escape plan to liberate themselves from the Old Machine as what few Engineers were harvested along with them studied Galzair's databanks. It seemed that they pushed too hard, and the catatonic Reaper's systems started shutting down from the strain of virtualizing even the minds of just the intellectual and political elite among those contained within it.

"I am afraid, there is only one path left for us now," the Warden said, putting his claw on the Wife's (what was her name? he recognized her face, but could not place the name) shoulder, "Tell the Engineers that we will have resort to Ha'i'us's plan whether he himself is still functional or not."

* * *

Johann Sorensen turned out to be a tall Nordic type clad in standard-issue Alliance military gear with a couple of custom bits and bobs added here and there, as most veterans did in the field, scavenging what they could. Interestingly enough, the name tag on the front of his armour actually said "Sorensen", which made Jane tense up a bit. He did not necessarily have to be another Shepard copy if he just- but how, then, could he have known her name?

"I'm Serrano, you were looking for me?" she asked, walking up to the reception desk from the side, not willing to risk the well-being of the nurse manning it if things went south. Up close, he wouldn't've been that intimidating for Commander Shepard... but Susan Davies was shorter than him, and that left Jane in a slightly less advantageous position.

"I was told you're the one to see about Dr. Chakwas's project," he replied in lieu of a greeting, "And here is my authorization code," he added, briefly flashing a holo-readout with his omni-tool. Sure enough, it was Shepard's.

"Alright then, let's take this somewhere less public," Jane replied with a nod, motioning Sorensen to follow. There was no real reason to lead him on, considering that Shepard's number wasn't common knowledge and that she already knew there'd be no reliable way of checking his identity short of outright discussing things only Shepard knew and saw. Her thoughts raced as they walked down the corridor.

It felt odd, how irritating his manner of speech felt. Did she- hah!- did Shepard always sound like this to the outside observer? Really? His team never seemed to mind what he did or said and- but then again, this was the usual effect of the Cult of Shepard, as Brooks affectionately called it.

Retreating into an exam room that was unoccupied, Jane made a show of locking the door after the other guy, watching with slight bewilderment as the vaguely familiar walk took him to a chair and settled him down in a very familiar pose.

"So, how does this work, exactly? What's your role here?" he asked after a brief awkward pause spawned of Jane's hesitation to figure out how to best put _"You and I are the same person"_ into words that wouldn't sound pants-on-head retarded.

"Project Leader, far as I'm aware, whenever Dr. Chakwas isn't here," Jane replied absent-mindedly, leaning against the examination bed.

"Alright, fair enough. How large **is** "The Project"?" Sorensen asked cautiously. It was understandable - his call "upstairs" must've taken place after Chakwas visited Jane, and that was what, a day ago? Day and a half?

"Her, me, and now you. Oh, and also whatever eggheads she manages to rope into helping out," was the reply, accompanied by a slightly crooked smile. Jane suddenly realized that it might've looked seven shades of weird on Susan's face. She was doing things she remembered doing as Shepard without thinking about how that projected on a different body. Not a thing to do when physical exertion will be required, she noted to herself.

"Hmm. Not a lot. So how'd you get into this? I notice you're not a local, so there must've been something in it for you?" Sorensen wondered aloud.

"Oh yes, quite a prize, in fact," she nodded in response, trying a different smile. He didn't seem to react at all, which was... good, maybe? It would't do if they would all act like puppets sharing a puppeteer - or, in their particular case, body language, facial expressions and favourite turns of phrase. Before he could ask anything further, she pressed on, "Alright, let's get you up to speed. Formally, the world at large believes Commander Shepard died aboard the Citadel when the Crucible was activated, and that the Synthesis event was a natural function of the Crucible, which is the way we **want** things to stay to avoid any interplanetary diplomatic incidents, is that clear?"

"Crystal. What's the game plan?"

"Chakwas is talking to the Quarians and Geth about repurposing their virtualization tech - you know the one - in order to see if they would be able to separate the digitized Commander Shepard 'consciousness' from the host body without doing too much neural damage to the original personality, if it's even still there, because at the core of the problem, it's no different now from several Geth squishing themselves into a single platform. Follow me so far?" Jane explained, gesticulating along the way in a manner she hoped was unShepardlike. Somehow, the idea of being different from... from this leatherneck... sounded very appealing right now.

"Yeah, except one thing. How do **you** know all this?" Sorensen replied, narrowing his eyes and making a pretend jab with his finger at her. For some reason, this made her very angry.

"Just like the way I know that you were offered a choice inside the Crucible, and you probably made a wrong one, and now the galaxy has to live with it for... well, pretty much forever," Jane replied with a shrug and a wave of her hand, "Because when Shepard died, his consciousness wasn't copied just to **one** body,-" she started, before pausing. That was it. Why he rubbed her the wrong way, why she was concerned with differentiating herself from him. Why she was referring to herself in the female pronoun, in fact.

"Oh crap. We're a virus?" Johann's eyes widened in shock as the realization dawned, though it was hard to tell whether it was because of the idea that the diminutive woman he was looking at was as much Commander Shepard as he was (however insane that idea was), or because that they were probably not the only two ones. Possibly a combination of both, Jane mused as she picked the words for her reply carefully.

"Oh no. Shepard's the virus. We're the end result. _Brother._"

* * *

"So, is it worth anything?"

Haruk could barely contain his excitement, while his partner stood quietly to the side, brooding as usual. The Volus salvage operator was poring over the sarcophagus - Haruk decided that that's what it was, after all - with all the interest of a high-society Asari studying Tuchankan roadkill. Of course, it was harder to tell with them, just as with the Quarians - the blighters never showed their faces outside of their pressure suits (as, unlike the Quarians, they would probably die in that case, even post-Change) - but the body language was pretty obvious. The Volus did not like what he was seeing, and not in the _what is this drek you've brought me_ kind of way. Was that fear in his posture? Haruk couldn't be certain, and asking Whisperer was rather pointless - even if he chose to share his opinion (which was not guaranteed), conversing with him in such a manner in front of a potential salvage buyer was probably bad business. Probably.

"I can offer you the standard going rate for non-standard items," the Volus finally said, pausing to draw breath in their usual sharp and sudden manner that in any other sentient would've been a clear sign of asphyxiation, "Which is by the weight," he added as a reminder, showing Haruk a number on his omni-tool. As if saying it out loud would have changed anything, there was nobody to listen in anyway, Haruk thought, but said nothing, instead gesturing for Whisperer to look at the number. The barefaced Turian shrugged nonchalantly and stalked off towards the airlock. Haruk took it as a sign of agreement and nodded to the Volus, who tapped a few holographic buttons, sending the sarcophagus off into the containment area of his barge.

"Alright, but what IS it?"

"That, I do not know," the Volus paused, but not for a breath, which he took anyway in an obvious bid to stall for time as he deliberated, "The sides are heavily shielded, not permitting through any scans whatsoever," he drew a breath that sounded more panicked than those that preceded it, "Which might mean it's simply solid..." Another pause, one that made Haruk want to hit the blasted rotund gas-guzzler over the head with something for over-dramatization, "Or that it's shielded by something we've never seen before."

* * *

The two women sat opposing each other in the passenger section of the Alliance shuttle. Daro'Xen's entourage was eclectic, to say the least - a young Quarian woman whose only concession to Daro's newfound beliefs was the removal of her faceplate (easily seen tucked into her shoulder bag) revealing an equally alien, if less cybernetically-enhanced face, and two Geth of the more organic model range, one marked in red and black and the other in orange and blue. Opposite them, Dr. Chakwas's assistants looked positively mundane, both M4s sworn into secrecy and briefed in as little as possible before they were exposed to "The Project".

"Alright, so what does your side know?" Xen began as an icebreaker of sorts, rubbing her hands together. It wasn't a sign of discomfort or nervousness, it's just that she enjoyed the sensation so much, the only reason she didn't do it constantly was because she was afraid it would damage her skin, unused to the vagaries of being exposed to the elements and, as such rather soft even with the post-Synthesis enhancements.

"Not a lot beyond yours, I'm afraid," Karin replied with a half-smile, "Synthetic parts - implants and prosthetics - are now fully integrated into the body, as you yourself have no doubt already experienced," she paused, indicating Xen's face with her open hand, "The biggest changes are to the internals, as half the organs have been rendered redundant, as was most of the cardiovascular system. It appears we now function as some sort of superconductor-based lifeforms maintaining a unified energy field that can be replenished from a variety of sources, which almost fully replaces the needs to feed, drink and sleep. If the effort is rationed properly, a human can now function indefinitely, without sleep whatsoever."

"I see. We assumed that was just a side-effect of all those implants the Quarians normally receive as they mature," Xen replied thoughtfully, "Although I'm certain that it contributed to the overall situation as well, between the Geth efforts to reinforce our immune systems and the overall enhancements of the Change, as the average Quarian as now apparently at least as resilient as an Asari maiden in her prime, or at least as they used to be _before_," she paused, lost in thought, "We don't have anything on the Asari, do we?"

Dr. Chakwas shook her head.

"It appears that they've gone into full informational lockdown. There are Asari cooperating with us, Aria T'Loak and her cohorts included, but they don't have much in the way of scientists, and thus far we've had no luck securing any volunteers for experimentation and study," she explained, "Mercenaries being what they are, it's a miracle we even got them to share their internal experiences."

"Which are?"

"Melding is now vastly different for them, a wholly altered experience. I assume it has something to do with the way the new techno-organic systems interact on levels beyond the Meld itself, which may or may not mean that our new 'package', so to speak, includes an electronic telepathy of sorts, possibly NFC-based."

"That... is something I was not aware of," Xen admitted, "Although there are a few things I've also noticed," she added, her tone cautious, as if holding back an embarassing secret, "May I have your hand?"

The Quarian girl rolled her eyes as the M4s tensed. Chakwas nodded, reaching out with her left hand towards the Quarian admiral.

"Alright, tell me of any changes in sensation," Xen said as she held the human doctor's outstretched palm between hers.

"That... actually feels like a mild electric charge," Chakwas admitted with incredulity, "How are you doing this?"

"By feeling irritated," was the reply, "It's not directly related, of course, but is probably tangentially triggered either by something in the chemical reaction to irritation - as far as I understand, we all still do have the biochemical circulation processes from before, just with different chemicals for some races - and can be isolated through experimentation."

"And for that you need willing live specimens," Chakwas concluded the half-hanging phrase, "Which means it's your lucky day."

* * *

Up in the shuttle's cockpit, the discussion progressed along the same lines, except maybe with a different tone.

"It's bloody insane is what it is," the co-pilot kept repeating, "I mean, don't we have our own boffins? Why do we have to import alien ones?"

"Cool it, Blackwell," the navigator responded, "What we are now, we're like cyber-organisms, right? Who else to ask for help with figuring this out than the experts, and the Quarians and Geth are the only ones that dabbled in this before."

"Not entirely correct," the pilot interjected, "The Salarians are big on transhumanism. Or, trans-salarianism, as it may be."

"Yeah, Zorin's right. Why does it have to be the bobbleheads?"

"Not what I was saying, Blackwell," Zorin objected, but his words fell on deaf ears.

"I mean, look where making the geth got them in the long run!" Blackwell continued, unrelentingly.

"Standing on the edge of a technological singularity a month and a half prior to the Synthesis event?" Zorin carefully proposed, adding a course correction to avoid an oversized piece of dead Reaper being hauled by yet another salvager. It was amazing, how many ramshackle ships that just _happened_ to be suitable for salvaging sprung up from the metaphorical woodwork once the firefights stopped.

"No, I mean, exiled from their homew- wait, what?"

"Shepard united the Quarians and the Geth shortly before Thessia fell, remember? It was all over the Extranet, for crying out loud!" Zorin continued, "You live under a rock or something?"

"Shepard's a propaganda tool, Zorin," Blackwell retorted, "Everyone knows that. We don't even know if the dude they painted on those posters was an actual person, the whole biography reads like a freakin' action flick synopsis, " he continued, the tone of dismission heavy in his voice, "C'mon, Mack, you gotta side with me on this one."

"I hate to break it to you, Blackwell, but there are far more outrageous confirmed real biographies of humans doing crazy shit during wars. Even on pre-spaceflight Earth," Mack shrugged, "It's statistically possible that a human being that badass would actually be born in our time AND landed in the N7 program, and no implausible that it sort of snowballed from there..."

"If Shepard didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent him," Zorin said thoughtfully, thumbing the comms, "Prepare for atmospheric entry, everyone," he announced to the passengers.

"Throwing Voltaire at us now, are you, Zorin? That's unlike you," Blackwell said reproachfully.

"Vol-who? It's something I got out of a fortune cookie. Honest," Zorin replied with a sly grin that belied a deep sadness, taking the ship down towards the blue marble in a practiced move the body almost seemed to do of its own accord, "Shepard is a necessary symbol. Besides, I rather like the song. I guess I slept through too much of the war, it's probably fun to shoot at stuff to it."

"The song?" Blackwell asked with a confused expression.

"Yeah. _"You can fight like a krogan, run like a leopard, but..._" Zorin began, nodding to the rhythm of it.

"_You'll never be better than Commander Shepard!_" Mack finished for him.

"That sucks as a propaganda song, man," Blackwell said, grinning, "I mean, it's right there, it says you can't be better than the man. How is this useful?"

"By showing that a human can be better than any alien, stupid," Mack explained, before turning to Zorin, "How'd you learn it anyway? You were comatose when it came out."

"As I said, I slept through too much, but I heard it in the hospital when I came to," Zorin responded with a grin, "It's like it woke me up. Called to me, even."

"How're you feeling, by the way? I mean, you're only two days out of the hospital," Mack asked cautiously, looking away from the telemetry and to Zorin, who replied with a shrug.

"Eh. It's better than lying around in a ship's medical bay, staring at the ceiling, wishing I was somewhere else instead," Zorin responded, "Especially when I **can** be somewhere else instead, doing good for the common man!" he finished with a flourish and a triumphant wave of his fist. When the shuttle lurched because he let go of the controls, he muttered a curse and returned his hand to whence it came.

"Okay, seriously, who are you and what have you done with Zorin?"

_"I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my new body,"_ would not have been an acceptable answer, probably, definitely, maybe. He was still confused at the weird overlap of his own memories, of Rannoch, of Tali's face, of Kalross, and those of Flight Lieutenant Eugene Zorin, of a woman named Anita, of two children that will never grow up, of a long drinking binge that almost ended in suicide. A few things, however, were universal between the two. Zorin was from Horizon. He saw some of the same things as Shepard.

"ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL, RUN, PITIFUL HUMANS," he mock-bellowed instead, "WE SHALL TAKE YOUR WOMEN AND BEER, AND YOU WILL NOT STOP US!"

"Oh no, it's the Beer-Reapers!" Blackwell exclaimed in mock shock, "Wait, wouldn't that be Beereapers?"

"No, that's wrong, that would be like they're Bee Reapers," Mack corrected, "And like it or not, they're cuttlefish. Giant, scary, mechanical cuttlefish."

"Ironically enough, there's a species of cuttlefish on Earth called the Reaper Cuttlefish," Zorin said, somewhat giddily, "Two guesses what it looks like."

"NO. WAY!" the other two responded in unison.

"Seriously. Look it up on the Extranet when we land. Beer's on you, by the way," he continued, working through the pattern of landing preparations that came almost as automatically as breathing to Zorin, even as Shepard felt them separated from his mind. "London Actual, this is Alliance Shuttle TDR-421, under requisition by Dr. Karin Chakwas, requesting permission to land."

"Sending nav data now, TDR-421, stand by," the radio crackled, "Scans say you've got... other passengers?"

"Yeah, Quarians and Geth, guests of the doctor," Zorin responded, before hastily adding, "Flight plan was cleared with Alliance Control," he clarified, "War's over, right?"

"Yes, redirecting you to a different landing pad, please stand by."

"What the..?" Mack whispered, staring with incredulity at the approaching cityscape.

"We've got a... disturbance of sorts here, Terra Firma decided it's time to wake up and kick up some dust," the radio operator explained, dropping formalities, "It would be best if your guests did not run afoul of the demonstration they're aiming at the Husks leaving for Mars."

"Acknowledged, Actual, new landing data received," Zorin nodded, killing the connection. "So, anyone wants to tell the VIPs, or should I?"

* * *

Mack slid the separator doors open, startling the passengers that seemed to be... playing patty-cake? That's what it looked like, anyway.

"...and the data transfer should-" the Quarian was saying before she cut herself short to glare at the human.

"What is it, _Lef_tenant?" Dr. Chakwas asked, "What's taking so long?"

"We've been diverted for landing, ma'am," the man explained, "Terra Firma's mucking about, and groundside recommended we avoid them for the sake of our guests," he nodded at Xen, watching with half-hidden bemusement how she scowled in a rather grotesque way. It seemed that a lifetime of not having to use your facial muscles for non-vocal communication led to a lot of troubles adjusting to a helmetless life.

"Terra Firma?" Xen asked, "Are they something we should be concerned with?"

"Pro-human political group," Chakwas explained, "They were disbanded shortly before the war broke out, but apparently now that it's peacetime again, they remembered they don't like humans playing nicely with other races."

"Hah. You humans love your conflicts, don't you?"

"And politics. Pretty much like your people, Admiral," the doctor nodded, "Although they're not much of a political force now that they're no longer allied with Cerberus," she added thoughtfully. "Let's just hope everything goes smoothly."

"We can escort you to your destination, Doctor," the pilot chimed in from his seat, waving a hand, "If you are concerned for your safety."

"I'm sure that won't be necessary," Xen interjected, "You said yourself, we're landing in a different place, right?"

"Yes, but it's a longer trip to your final destination that way," the man whose nametag said "Mack" explained, "I know that the city's still under martial law, and they won't risk anything drastic, but... you know..." he choked.

"What my friend is trying to say, ma'am, is that some humans might react wrongly to unmasked Quarians walking alongside Geth down the streets of their city," the man tagged as "Blackwell" added, "You know how it can be, right?"

Xen brushed a hand across her cybernetics-streaked cheek, remembering the fear and loathing she saw in the eyes of the fleet commanders the day before.

"Yes, I know."


End file.
